It’s the most wonderful time of the year again! The Christmas season is here and it’s time for all the magical things we look forward to all year long. Christmas music, baking cookies with children and grandchildren, looking at lights, visiting Santa, shopping til’ we drop, and eating until we can’t eat anymore!

Oh yeah, and getting hurt. Lots of people getting hurt.

The holidays are glorious for the most part, but then there’s the not so glorious parts. Like climbing a ladder as tall as the Eiffel Tower because our wife really wants a pre-lit Santa on the roof this year. Or accidentally serving blood as a side dish with the Christmas ham because one of our sweet little people came running through the kitchen and crashed into us just as we started carving it.

The holidays are glorious for the most part, but then there’s the not so glorious parts. #Christmasinjuries… Click to Tweet

These are the things we could most certainly live without, but thankfully our local ER’s are filled with wonderful nurses and doctors to take care of any injury our stupidity has brought on this year. And since we can’t stop hurting ourselves there’s a code for just about anything – even being struck by a mistletoe!

Over the next few weeks we’ll cover 12 of the most ridiculous, but still likely, injuries and illnesses you may incur during the most wonderful time of the year. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy sleigh ride!

Jack Frost Nipped Your Nose

T33: Superficial frostbite.

Do you remember in A Christmas Story when the boy on the playground got his tongue stuck on the flagpole? It was a little funny when he first got stuck, but not so funny after the bell rang and everyone left him there. You’re likely feeling almost as embarrassed as he did now that Jack Frost got a little overzealous this year and you ended up like Frosty the Snowman, only your frozen extremities aren’t nearly as nostalgic. Whether good ol’ Jack got your nose, fingers, or toes, there’s a code for that!

You Tried to Harness Your Inner Griswold

W13.2XXS: Fall from, out of, or through roof

All those years of watching the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation clearly taught you nothing and you decided to go all Clark Griswold on your house this year. You succeeded in the worst way imaginable and ended up taking a pretty nasty fall off the roof. Too bad you couldn’t take out a hateful neighbors window while you were at it. The good news is once your arm is placed in a splint and your teenage daughter has told you just how embarrassed she is by your public display of klutziness, you’ll be good as new within a few weeks!

Check out these funny #holiday injuries people actually incur year after year! Click to Tweet

You Got Decked by the Halls

Z18.81: Retained glass fragments.

You tried decking the halls, but they got to you first. Don’t worry, your doctor will be able to note exactly how bits of that now shattered ornament ended up in your foot and one lucky nurse will have all the shards removed before it’s time to put the angel on top of the tree! Just make sure the ladder is good and secure before making the short climb to add said angel. Your local medical staff loves you, but they don’t want to see you twice in one day.

That’s all for part 1 – be sure to check back next week for part 2! Spoiler alert: shopping can be a contact sport.

+Manny Oliverez is a 20 year veteran of healthcare having managed medical practices. He advises medical practices, physicians and practice administrators on how to run their practice and manage their medical billing and revenue cycle management. Manny speaks, blogs and makes videos at www.CaptureBilling.com, a blog that is tops in the medical billing and coding field. READ MORE

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